A lighting system may include one or more arrays of light emitting elements. The arrays may include lighting elements that are electrically coupled in series and parallel. During some conditions, it may be desirable to have all arrays in the lighting system activated simultaneously. Further, it may be desirable to adjust the intensity of light provided via the lighting system. One example of when it may be desirable to activate all arrays of a lighting system is when the lighting system is supplying light to cure a large work piece. However, if the lighting system is being applied to cure a smaller work piece, activating all arrays in the lighting system may consume more energy than is desired. Further, activating all arrays in the lighting system may expose some areas of the work piece to levels of illumination that may be greater than is desired. While it may be possible to control an array of lights in a lighting system via a microcontroller, the microcontroller may increase system cost and complexity.
The inventor herein has recognized the above-mentioned disadvantages and has developed a lighting system, comprising: a plurality of lighting segment driver circuits, each of the plurality of lighting segment driver circuits electrically coupled to a lighting segment; and a plurality of circuit boards including the plurality of lighting segment driver circuits, each of the plurality of circuit boards identical to the other of the plurality of circuit boards, each of the plurality of circuit boards including comparator circuits that are in electrical communication with the plurality of lighting segment driver circuits.
By providing a single circuit board that provides different functions responsive to the location of the single circuit board in an enclosure, it may be possible to selectively activate and deactivate lighting segments to reduce energy consumption without activating and deactivating the lighting segments via outputs of a microcontroller that includes executable instructions. In one example, lighting segments may be selectively activated and deactivated responsive to a plurality of voltage levels that are compared to a command voltage. The plurality of voltage levels may be determined via selecting values of resistors that form a voltage dividing network. In addition, output of two comparators may be reversed to control a direction and order of voltages that are compared to the command voltage so that the single board design may control a direction in which lighting segments may be activated and deactivated.
The present description may provide several advantages. In particular, the approach may reduce system cost via eliminating programming of a controller. Further, the approach utilizes a single circuit board design that allows the single circuit board design to provide different functionality depending on location of the circuit board in an enclosure. In addition, the approach may reduce system power consumption when operations on a work piece may be performed with less than all lighting segments in a lighting array operating.
The above advantages and other advantages, and features of the present description will be readily apparent from the following Detailed Description when taken alone or in connection with the accompanying drawings.
It should be understood that the summary above is provided to introduce in simplified form a selection of concepts that are further described in the detailed description. It is not meant to identify key or essential features of the claimed subject matter, the scope of which is defined uniquely by the claims that follow the detailed description. Furthermore, the claimed subject matter is not limited to implementations that solve any disadvantages noted above or in any part of this disclosure.